At FREEPSY, we are building a Free Clinics Network (FCN), made up of autonomous clinical collectives worldwide offering free or low-cost psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically-informed psychotherapy to marginal individuals and populations, while also rethinking the socio-political dimension of mental health.
The FCN aims to map free or low-cost psychoanalytic collectives and promote shared practices among clinicians to widen access to psychoanalytic treatment. We envision the FCN network as a co-built space where collectives, institutions, and clinics can collaborate. This space will foster listening, learning, and practice exchange, recognising patients and analysts as co-creators of a context of care.
If you are involved in a free psychoanalytic clinic, we’d love to hear from you!
You are invited to send us a “video letter” to tell us about your free clinic. Grab your phone, record a clip of up to 5 minutes, and send it to us! We’d love to hear about:
– What does the idea of a ‘free clinic’ mean to you, your colleagues, and your patients?
– When did your clinic first start? How has it evolved since then?
– What are the challenges and tensions of operating a free clinic?
– How does clinical practice evolve in a free clinic?
– How would you like to interact with other free clinics in your region, and around the world?
You can submit your videos to freepsy@essex.ac.uk or share with us using a file sharing service such as WeTransfer. When you send your videos, please confirm that you have permission from everyone in the clip to share it on social media (Instagram, YouTube).
You are also warmly invited to our “Opening Dialogues” which will take place online in May and June, in different languages and regions – the first two events are on Thursday 29th May from 6-7:30pm GMT in English (details hereand on Tuesday June 24th at 4-5:30 pm GMT (12:00-13:30 Brazilian Standard Time) in Portuguese (details here).
